流过多少汗，流下多少泪，只为高考这一天；付出多少时间，付出多少努力，只为高考这一刻；高考这条路就算布满荆棘也要披荆而过，请相信天道酬勤，请相信付出一定会有回报，对自己充满信心，加油，祝高考成功顺利。湖北省黄冈中学2015-2016学年高二上学期期末考试英语试题

考试时间：150分钟 满分：120分

第一部分 听力（共两节，满分30分） 略

第二部分 阅读理解（共两节，满分40分）

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第一节（共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分）

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。

A

Imagine how boring life would be, if not for creative and useful inventions. Rolling Bench. Sitting on a park bench especially after a rain is a nightmare, and I bet most of you have had that uncomfortable experience of rising to a wet bottom. These benches can accurately save you on a rainy day. They have a handle that can turn the seat surface to face a relatively clean side. Be careful with the people who might turn the handle and land you into water.

Stairway Drawers. Stairways are generally considered a threat as it occupies a lot of space, but what about one that will serve its purpose and can also be used to store things. It’s a pretty interesting concept: the stairway has built-in one push drawer into every step that can store your shoes.

Stairway Library. These stairways are specially made to house your collection of books and magazines or even your favourite music CDs. This fashionable stairway is an obvious must-have for those of you owning your own library. You can even use it to show off your collection of vases and antiques.

Pocket Chair. Say goodbye to pains especially when working in a garden for a long time. You can now carry your foldable, pocket chair with you, wherever you go. Take it along with you if you have to go for a long trip too, you can simply open it up and sit at ease.

21．What should you do first before sitting on a rolling bench after a rain?

A．Remove the surface of the seat. B．Turn the surface upside down. C．Fix a clean surface on the seat. D．Turn the handle repeatedly.

22．Stairway drawers are the names of containers _______. A．for you to house vases and antiques B．for children to show off their CDs C．used to put aside your shoes D．used to collect books and magazines

23．If Mary wants to go for a camp on Sunday, she is advised to take along the _______. A．rolling bench B．stairway library C．pocket chair D．stairway drawers

B

There is a 9-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle (一滩水) between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out they will never let him forget it. When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

The boy believes his heart is going to stop. He puts his head down and prays: “This is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I’m dead meat.” He looks up from his prayer, and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and spills the bowl of water in the boy’s lap.

The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself. “Thank God!”

Now all of a sudden, instead of being made fun of, the boy gets sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But the ridicule that should have been his is given to someone else—Susie. She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. “You’ve done enough!”

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers: “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Susie whispers back: “I wet my pants once too.”

24．What is the boy’s reaction to this incident at first? A．He is calm but worried. B．He thinks he is going to die. C．He is afraid and embarrassed.

D．He prays and asks for help from his teacher.

25．The underlined word “sympathy” probably means _______. A．care B．cheating C．belief D．contribution

26．After Susie spills the bowl of water in the boy’s lap, _______. A．other students ask Susie for help and yell at her

B．the teacher sends the boy downstairs to clean up around his desk C．the little boy becomes really angry and runs away to change his clothes

D．the little boy is saved from embarrassment and gains others’ sympathy 27．From the story, we can conclude that _______.

A．all the children feel wonderful about being able to help

B．the teacher does not know what actually happened to the little boy C．Susie spends a long time coming up with a plan to help the little boy D．Susie is kindhearted and still tries to help even though she is ridiculed

C

He is probably the greatest artist of the 20th century. As CBS said, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) “defined modern art”.

In the past, artists had made paintings look like windows – they painted to make it look like there was depth. You could tell which objects were “close” to you and which objects were “far away”, as if the picture were a window you were looking through.

But Picasso and his colleague Georges Braque (1882-1963) thought that a painting wasn’t a window on the world; it was marks and lines on a flat surface. Why should an object be shown only from one perspective?

Their answer was to break up objects into pieces and show all the perspectives. It was an analytical approach to art, which gave this style of painting its name: “analytic cubism(解析立体主义)”. You can take a closer look at these paintings in Shanghai where nearly 100 pieces of Picasso’s work are on display until Jan 31, 2016. But why did they feel such a need to change things? Well, the world around them was changing. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity was proving what humans knew about time and space to be wrong. And it wasn’t only science that was making waves. New political movements like socialism were on the rise. So artists needed to start seeing the world and painting it differently.